Ashʿarī theology or Ashʿarism
(; ar, الأشعرية: )
is one of the main
Sunnī schools of Islamic theology
Schools of Islamic theology are various Islamic schools and branches in different schools of thought regarding '' ʿaqīdah'' (creed). The main schools of Islamic Theology include the Qadariyah, Falasifa, Jahmiyya, Murji'ah, Muʿtazila, Bat ...
, founded by the
Muslim scholar,
Shāfiʿī
The Shafii ( ar, شَافِعِي, translit=Shāfiʿī, also spelled Shafei) school, also known as Madhhab al-Shāfiʿī, is one of the four major traditional schools of religious law (madhhab) in the Sunnī branch of Islam. It was founded by ...
jurist
A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the U ...
,
reformer, and
scholastic theologian Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī in the 9th–10th century.
It established an orthodox guideline based on
scriptural authority,
rationality
Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reasons. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ab ...
,
and theological
rationalism
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy' ...
.
Al-Ashʿarī established a middle way between the doctrines of the
Aṯharī and
Muʿtazila
Muʿtazila ( ar, المعتزلة ', English: "Those Who Withdraw, or Stand Apart", and who called themselves ''Ahl al-ʿAdl wa al-Tawḥīd'', English: "Party of ivineJustice and Oneness f God); was an Islamic group that appeared in early Islami ...
schools of Islamic theology, based both on reliance on the
sacred scriptures of Islam and theological rationalism concerning the
agency
Agency may refer to:
Organizations
* Institution, governmental or others
** Advertising agency or marketing agency, a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients
** Employment agency, a business that ...
and
attributes of God
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
.
Ashʿarism eventually became the predominant school of theological thought within Sunnī Islam,
and is regarded as the single most important school of Islamic theology in the
history of Islam
The history of Islam concerns the political, social, economic, military, and cultural developments of the Islamic civilization. Most historians believe that Islam originated in Mecca and Medina at the start of the 7th century CE. Muslims re ...
.
The disciples of the Ashʿarī school are known as Ashʿarites,
and the school is also referred to as the Ashʿarite school,
which became one of the dominant theological schools within Sunnī Islam.
[Abdullah Saeed ''Islamic Thought: An Introduction'' Routledge 2006 chapter 5] Ashʿarī theology is considered one of the orthodox creeds of Sunnī Islam,
alongside the Aṯharī and
Māturīdī.
Amongst the most famous Ashʿarite theologians are
Imam Nawawi
Abū Zakariyyā Yaḥyā ibn Sharaf al-Nawawī ( ar, أبو زكريا يحيى بن شرف النووي; (631A.H-676A.H) (October 1230–21 December 1277), popularly known as al-Nawawī or Imam Nawawī, was a Sunni Shafi'ite jurist and ...
,
Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani
Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī or ''Ibn Ḥajar'' ( ar, ابن حجر العسقلاني, full name: ''Shihābud-Dīn Abul-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn Nūrud-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī al-Kināni'') (18 February 1372 – 2 Febru ...
,
Ibn al-Jawzi
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Abu 'l-Faras̲h̲ b. al-Jawzī, often referred to as Ibn al-Jawzī (Arabic: ابن الجوزي, ''Ibn al-Jawzī''; ca. 1116 – 16 June 1201) for short, or reverentially as ''Imam Ibn al-Jawzī'' by ...
,
al-Ghazali
Al-Ghazali ( – 19 December 1111; ), full name (), and known in Persian-speaking countries as Imam Muhammad-i Ghazali (Persian: امام محمد غزالی) or in Medieval Europe by the Latinized as Algazelus or Algazel, was a Persian poly ...
,
al-Suyuti
Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti ( ar, جلال الدين السيوطي, Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī) ( 1445–1505 CE),; ( Brill 2nd) or Al-Suyuti, was an Arab Egyptian polymath, Islamic scholar, historian, Sufi, and jurist. From a family of Persian ...
,
Izz al-Din ibn 'Abd al-Salam
Abū Muḥammad ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz bin ʿAbd al-Salām bin Abī al-Qāsim bin Ḥasan al-Sulamī al-Shāfiʿī ( ar, أبو محمد عز الدين عبد العزيز بن عبد السلام بن أبي القاسم بن حسن ا ...
,
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi,
Ibn 'Asakir,
al-Subki,
al-Taftazani
Sa'ad al-Din Masud ibn Umar ibn Abd Allah al-Taftazani ( fa, سعدالدین مسعودبن عمربن عبداللّه هروی خراسانی تفتازانی) also known as Al-Taftazani and Taftazani (1322–1390) was a Muslim Persian po ...
,
al-Baqillani
Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn aṭ-Ṭayyib al-Bāqillānī ( ar, أبو بكر محمد بن الطيب الباقلاني; c. 950 - 5 June 1013), often known as al-Bāqillānī for short, or reverentially as Imām al-Bāqillānī by adherents to the ...
and
al-Bayhaqi
Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn Mūsā al-Khusrawjirdī al-Bayhaqī ( ar, أبو بكر أحمد بن حسين بن علي بن موسى الخسروجردي البيهقي, 994–1066), also known as Imām al-Bayhaqī, was born c. ...
. Scholars and scientists who were affiliated with the Ashari school included
Al-Biruni
Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973 – after 1050) commonly known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian in scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the "founder of Indology", "Father of Co ...
,
Ibn al-Haytham
Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham, Latinized as Alhazen (; full name ; ), was a medieval mathematician, astronomer, and physicist of the Islamic Golden Age from present-day Iraq.For the description of his main fields, see e.g. ("He is one of the pr ...
,
Ibn al-Nafis and
Ibn Khaldun
Ibn Khaldun (; ar, أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي, ; 27 May 1332 – 17 March 1406, 732-808 AH) was an Arab
The Historical Muhammad', Irving M. Zeitlin, (Polity Press, 2007), p. 21; "It is, of ...
.
History
Founder
Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī was born in
Basra
Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is han ...
,
[John L. Esposito, The Islamic World: Abbasid-Historian, p 54. ] Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
, and was a descendant of
Abū Mūsa al-Ashʿarī, which belonged to the first generation of
Muhammad's closest companions (''ṣaḥāba'').
[I.M.N. Al-Jubouri, History of Islamic Philosophy: With View of Greek Philosophy and Early History of Islam, p 182. ] As a young man he studied under
al-Jubba'i, a renowned teacher of
Muʿtazilite theology and
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...
. He was noted for his teachings on
atomism
Atomism (from Greek , ''atomon'', i.e. "uncuttable, indivisible") is a natural philosophy proposing that the physical universe is composed of fundamental indivisible components known as atoms.
References to the concept of atomism and its atom ...
, among the
earliest Islamic philosophies, and for al-Ashʿarī this was the basis for propagating the view that
God
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
created every moment in
time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...
and every particle of
matter
In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. All everyday objects that can be touched are ultimately composed of atoms, which are made up of interacting subatomic part ...
. He nonetheless believed in
free will
Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.
Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to ac ...
, elaborating the thoughts of Dirar ibn 'Amr and
Abu Hanifa
Nuʿmān ibn Thābit ibn Zūṭā ibn Marzubān ( ar, نعمان بن ثابت بن زوطا بن مرزبان; –767), commonly known by his '' kunya'' Abū Ḥanīfa ( ar, أبو حنيفة), or reverently as Imam Abū Ḥanīfa by Sunni Mus ...
into a "dual agent" or "acquisition" (''iktisab'') account of free will.
While al-Ashʿarī opposed the views of the rival
Muʿtazilite school, he was also opposed to the view which
rejected all debate, held by certain schools such as the
Zahiri
The Ẓāhirī ( ar, ظاهري, otherwise transliterated as ''Dhāhirī'') ''madhhab'' or al-Ẓāhirīyyah ( ar, الظاهرية) is a Sunnī school of Islamic jurisprudence founded by Dāwūd al-Ẓāhirī in the 9th century CE. It is chara ...
("literalist"),
Mujassimite
The Arabic phrase ''Bila Kayf'', also pronounced as ''Bila Kayfa'', ( ar, بلا كيف) is roughly translated as "without asking how", "without knowing how or what", or "without modality" which means without considering how and without comparis ...
("
anthropotheist"), and
Muhaddith
Hadith studies ( ar, علم الحديث ''ʻilm al-ḥadīth'' "science of hadith", also science of hadith, or science of hadith criticism or hadith criticism)
consists of several religious scholarly disciplines used by Muslim scholars in th ...
in ("
traditionalist") schools for their over-emphasis on ''
taqlid
''Taqlid'' (Arabic تَقْليد ''taqlīd'') is an Islamic term denoting the conformity of one person to the teaching of another. The person who performs ''taqlid'' is termed ''muqallid''. The definite meaning of the term varies depending on co ...
'' (imitation) in his ''Istihsan al‑Khaud'':
Development
Ashʿarism became the main school of
early Islamic philosophy
Early Islamic philosophy or classical Islamic philosophy is a period of intense philosophical development beginning in the 2nd century AH of the Islamic calendar (early 9th century CE) and lasting until the 6th century AH (late 12th century CE) ...
whereby it was originally based on the foundations laid down by al-Ashʿarī, who founded the Ashʿarite school in the 10th century based on the methodology taught to him by his teacher Abdullah ibn Sa'eed ibn Kullaab. However, the Ashʿarite school underwent many changes throughout history, resulting in the term ''Ashʿarī'' being extremely broad in its modern usage (e.g. differences between
Ibn Furak
Ibn Furak or Ibn Faurak ( ar, ابن فورك;
c. 941–c. 1015 CE / 330–406 AH) was a Muslim Imam, a theologian of Ash'arite school, a specialist of Arabic language, grammar and poetry, an orator, a jurist, and a hadith scholar from the ...
(d. AH 406) and
al-Bayhaqi
Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn Mūsā al-Khusrawjirdī al-Bayhaqī ( ar, أبو بكر أحمد بن حسين بن علي بن موسى الخسروجردي البيهقي, 994–1066), also known as Imām al-Bayhaqī, was born c. ...
(d. AH 384)).
For example, the Ashʿarite view was that comprehension of the
unique nature and characteristics of
God
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
were beyond human capability. The solution proposed by al-Ashʿarī to solve the problems of ''tashbih'' and ''ta'til'' concedes that the Supreme Being possesses in a real sense the divine attributes and
names
A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A persona ...
mentioned in the Quran. Insofar as these names and attributes have a positive reality, they are distinct from the essence, but nevertheless they don't have either existence or reality apart from it.
The inspiration of al-Ashʿarī in this matter was on the one hand to distinguish essence and attribute as concepts, and on the other hand to see that the duality between essence and attribute should be situated not on the quantitative but on the qualitative level — something which
Muʿtazilite thinking had failed to grasp. Ashʿarite theologians were referred to as the ''muthbita'' ("those who make firm") by the Muʿtazilites.
Beliefs
The Ashʿarī school of Islamic theology holds that:
*
God
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
is all-powerful (
omnipotent
Omnipotence is the quality of having unlimited power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence only to the deity of their faith. In the monotheistic religious philosophy of Abrahamic religions, omnipotence is often listed as one ...
).
** Therefore, good is what God commands – as revealed in the
Quran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...
and the ''
ḥadīth
Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval ...
''—and is by definition just; evil is what God forbids and is likewise unjust.
[John L. Esposito ''The Oxford History of Islam'' Oxford University Press 2000 p. 281] Right and wrong are in no way determined intuitively or naturally, they are not objective realities.
** Because of Divine omnipotence, there are no "natural laws" (of things like thermodynamics or gravity), because such laws would put limitations on His actions. There are, however, Divine "customs", whereby "certain so-called 'effects'" usually follow certain "causes" in the natural world.
** Also because of Divine power, all human acts—even the decision to raise a finger—are ''created'' by God. This had caused
controversy earlier in Islamic history because human acts are what humans are judged for when being sent to heaven (
jannah
In Islam, Jannah ( ar, جَنّة, janna, pl. ''jannāt'',lit. "paradise, garden", is the final abode of the righteous. According to one count, the word appears 147 times in the Quran. Belief in the afterlife is one of the six articles of f ...
) or hell (
Jahannam
In Islam, the place of punishment for unbelievers and other sin in Islam, evildoers in the afterlife, or hell, is an "integral part of Islamic theology",#ETISN2009, Thomassen, "Islamic Hell", Numen, 56, 2009: p.401 and has "occupied an important p ...
). Ashʿaris reconciled the doctrines of
free will
Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.
Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to actio ...
, justice, and divine omnipotence, with their own doctrine of ''kasb'' ("acquisition"), by which human beings "'acquire' responsibility for their actions,
although these "actions are willed and created by God".
Humans still possess
free will
Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.
Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to ac ...
(or, more accurately, freedom of
intention
Intentions are mental states in which the agent commits themselves to a course of action. Having the plan to visit the zoo tomorrow is an example of an intention. The action plan is the ''content'' of the intention while the commitment is the ''a ...
) under this doctrine, although their freedom is limited to the power to decide between the given possibilities God has created. (This doctrine is now known in
Western philosophy
Western philosophy encompasses the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics. The word ' ...
as
occasionalism
Occasionalism is a philosophical doctrine about causation which says that created substances cannot be efficient causes of events. Instead, all events are taken to be caused directly by God. (A related concept, which has been called "occasional c ...
.)
* The
Quran is the uncreated word of God, that is, it was not created ''by'' God, but like God has always been. It can also be said to be ''created'' when it takes on a form in letters or sound.
[Cyril Glassé, Huston Smith ''The New Encyclopedia of Islam'' Rowman Altamira 2003 page 62-3]
* The unique nature and attributes of God cannot be understood fully by human reason and the physical senses.
* Reason is God-given and must be employed over source of knowledge.
* Intellectual inquiry is decreed by the Quran and the
Islamic prophet
Prophets in Islam ( ar, الأنبياء في الإسلام, translit=al-ʾAnbiyāʾ fī al-ʾIslām) are individuals in Islam who are believed to spread God in Islam, God's message on Earth and to serve as models of ideal human behaviour. So ...
Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...
, therefore the interpretation (''
tafsīr
Tafsir ( ar, تفسير, tafsīr ) refers to exegesis, usually of the Quran. An author of a ''tafsir'' is a ' ( ar, مُفسّر; plural: ar, مفسّرون, mufassirūn). A Quranic ''tafsir'' attempts to provide elucidation, explanation, in ...
'') of the Quran and the ''ḥadīth'' should keep developing with the aid of older interpretations.
* Only God knows the
heart
The heart is a muscular organ in most animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide t ...
, who belongs to the faithful and who does not.
* God has "absolute freedom" to "punish or reward as He wills",
and so may forgive the sins of those in
Hell
In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...
.
* Support of ''
kalām
''ʿIlm al-Kalām'' ( ar, عِلْم الكَلام, literally "science of discourse"), usually foreshortened to ''Kalām'' and sometimes called "Islamic scholastic theology" or "speculative theology", is the philosophical study of Islamic doc ...
'' (rationalistic Islamic theology).
Ashʿarites further affirm that Muslims must believe:
** in all the
prophets and messengers of Islam, from
Adam
Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...
to Muhammad;
** and in the
angels
In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God.
Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles incl ...
.
Ashʿarites also hold beliefs about Allah's attributes that are unique to them, such as:
* Existence;
* Permanence without beginning;
* Endurance without end;
* Absoluteness and independence;
* Dissimilarity to created things;
* Oneness;
* Allah is all-powerful, willful, knowing, living, seeing, hearing, and speaking (signifying attributes).
Later Ashʿarism
![Saeed Fouda 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Saeed_Fouda_2.jpg)
Nicholas Heer writes that later Ashʿarite theologians "increasingly attempted to rationalize Islamic doctrine" from about the 12th century onwards. Theologians such as al-Taftāzānī and al-Jurjānī argued that the
Islamic sacred scriptures (the Quran and the ''ḥadīth'') "must be proven to be true by rational arguments" before being "accepted as the basis of the religion". Educated Muslims "must be convinced on the basis of rational arguments" and not revelation that Islam is true.
A series of rational proofs were developed by these Ashʿarite theologians, including proofs for "the following doctrines or propositions":
# the universe is originated;
# the universe has an originator or creator;
# the creator of the universe is knowing, powerful and willing;
# prophecy is possible;
# miracles are possible;
# miracles indicate the truthfulness of one who claims to be a prophet;
# Muhammad claimed to be a prophet and performed miracles.
Criticism
The medieval Muslim scholar
Ibn Taymiyyah
Ibn Taymiyyah (January 22, 1263 – September 26, 1328; ar, ابن تيمية), birth name Taqī ad-Dīn ʾAḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm ibn ʿAbd al-Salām al-Numayrī al-Ḥarrānī ( ar, تقي الدين أحمد بن عبد الحليم ...
criticised the Ashʿarī theology as (in the words of one historian,
Jonathan A. C. Brown
Jonathan Andrew Cleveland Brown is an American Muslim scholar of Islamic studies. Since 2012, he has served as an associate professor at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He holds the Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of ...
) "a Greek solution to Greek problems" that should "never" have concerned Muslims.
Both Ibn Taymiyyah and
Shah Waliullah Dehlawi
Quṭb-ud-Dīn Aḥmad Walīullāh Ibn ʿAbd-ur-Raḥīm Ibn Wajīh-ud-Dīn Ibn Muʿaẓẓam Ibn Manṣūr Al-ʿUmarī Ad-Dehlawī ( ar, ; 1703–1762), commonly known as Shāh Walīullāh Dehlawī (also Shah Wali Allah), was an Islamic ...
rejected the lack of literalism in Ashʿarī "speculative theology" and advocated "straightforward acceptance of God's description of Himself".
In contrast, German scholar
Eduard Sachau
Carl Eduard Sachau (20 July 1845 – 17 September 1930) was a German orientalist. He taught Josef Horovitz and Eugen Mittwoch.
Biography
He studied oriental languages at the Universities of Kiel and Leipzig, obtaining his PhD at Halle in 1867. ...
affirms that the Ashʿarī theology and its biggest defender,
al-Ghazali
Al-Ghazali ( – 19 December 1111; ), full name (), and known in Persian-speaking countries as Imam Muhammad-i Ghazali (Persian: امام محمد غزالی) or in Medieval Europe by the Latinized as Algazelus or Algazel, was a Persian poly ...
, was too literal and responsible for the decline of Islamic science starting in the 10th century. Sachau stated that the two clerics were the only obstacle to the Muslim world becoming a nation of "
Galileos,
Keplers, and
Newtons".
Ziauddin Sardar
Ziauddin Sardar ( ur, ضیاء الدین سردار; born 31 October 1951) is a British-Pakistani scholar, award-winning writer, cultural critic and public intellectual who specialises in Muslim thought, the future of Islam, futurology and s ...
states that some of the greatest
Muslim scientists of the
Islamic Golden Age
The Islamic Golden Age was a period of cultural, economic, and scientific flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 14th century. This period is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign ...
, such as
Ibn al-Haytham
Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham, Latinized as Alhazen (; full name ; ), was a medieval mathematician, astronomer, and physicist of the Islamic Golden Age from present-day Iraq.For the description of his main fields, see e.g. ("He is one of the pr ...
and
Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī
Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973 – after 1050) commonly known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian in scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the "founder of Indology", "Father of Co ...
, who were pioneers of the
scientific method
The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific m ...
, were themselves followers of the Ashʿarī school of Islamic theology.
Like other Ashʿarites who believed that faith or ''taqlid'' should be applied only to Islam and not to any
ancient Hellenistic authorities,
Ibn al-Haytham's view that ''taqlid'' should be applied only to the
prophets and messengers of Islam and not to any other authorities formed the basis for much of his
scientific skepticism
Scientific skepticism or rational skepticism (also spelled scepticism), sometimes referred to as skeptical inquiry, is a position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence. In practice, the term most commonly refe ...
and criticism against
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
and other ancient authorities in his ''Doubts Concerning Ptolemy'' and ''
Book of Optics
The ''Book of Optics'' ( ar, كتاب المناظر, Kitāb al-Manāẓir; la, De Aspectibus or ''Perspectiva''; it, Deli Aspecti) is a seven-volume treatise on optics and other fields of study composed by the medieval Arab scholar Ibn al- ...
''.
See also
*
2016 international conference on Sunni Islam in Grozny
*
2020 International Maturidi Conference
*
Islamic schools and branches
Islamic schools and branches have different understandings of Islam. There are many different sects or denominations, Madhhab, schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and schools of Islamic theology, or ''Aqidah, ʿaqīdah'' (creed). Within Islamic gr ...
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List of Ash'aris and Maturidis
The list of Ash'aris and Maturidis includes prominent adherents of the Ash'ari and Maturidi schools of thought. The Ash'aris are a doctrinal school of thought named after Imam Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari, and the Maturidi school is named for Abu Mansu ...
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List of prominent Ash'aris
Notes
Bibliography
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External links
Who are the Ash'arites?Dar al-Iftaa Al-Missriyyah
The Ash'ari's School of TheologyDar al-Iftaa Al-Missriyyah
www.sunna.info
{{Authority control
Sunni Islamic branches
Kalam
Islamic theology
Islamic philosophical schools
History of Islam